Riders Page

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Images from the May 22-24th 2009 Amberlea Meadows Dressage Show - Gold Show

	Champion	Horse	Champion's Average Score	Reserve Champion	Horse	Reserve Champion's Average	Prize
Junior	Elexis Ortlieb	Harrison	67.752%	Rebecca David McIsaac	Rills Carrick Fergus	66.541%	Horselife Saddlery Cooler
Adult Amateur	Sheila Duchek	First Light	69.905%	Wendy Cameron	Celestial Sapphire QS	69.905%	Dressage Boutique Cooler
Open	Sanna MacFarlane	Zoey	71.340%	Sanna MacFarlane	Pilar W	70.510%	High Mark Agencies Cooler
FEI	Crystal Kroetch	Lymrix	67.566%	Lindsay Seidel Wassenaar	Oslo	67.500%	Tophat n' Tails Cooler

A recent email to Amberlea Meadows addressed to Ellen:

Hi Ellen,

I'm sure you don't remember me - it's been about.. Oh, 22 years...

(Wow), but I was walking down memory lane in my head today and I thought maybe I would send you an email. When I was six years old my mom and I drove past a field of horses, and I went nuts. I wanted to ride SO badly. Even though she (my mom) was really scared of horses, she set me up with some beginner’s lessons with you (she stayed in the car most of the time!).

I remember clearly my first lesson at Amberlea with you. I rode Ben, who was old at the time so has surely passed by now. Anyway, I remember walking in the mud for maybe the first time, and learning to tack up, and just being so incredibly excited.

You were a strict teacher but you took me seriously even at 6 years old. For some reason I remember you saying "I want smooth and creamy! Not chunky peanut butter!" during one of my lessons and that made me laugh. I can't even remember how long I rode with you - maybe a couple years. Then I moved to another area and found a new barn.

Well I stuck with riding my whole life. I would say that horses pretty much raised me. I live in BC now and I have my own horse (who is a terrible brat, but also quite lovely) and I teach riding lessons to beginners and kids with autism.

I guess I just wanted to say thank you. There is no way to really say it in a strong enough way. You really changed my life. Horses have been by far the best thing in my world. Now as a teacher I know how trying little kids can be sometimes and how tempting it is to just get their lessons over with :) I am sure that if you hadn't put the energy into me that you did, my sticking to it at age 6 with a mom who wasn't into it just wouldn't have happened and I would have missed out on so much.

Best,

Cindy

PS- attached is a picture of me with some students, and then a picture of my horse Abby